


I Have a Gentle Cock

by RosalindInPants



Category: The Great Library Series - Rachel Caine
Genre: Domestic Fluff, M/M, Middle English poetry with bad puns, Oral Sex, Poetry, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-06
Updated: 2019-05-06
Packaged: 2020-02-16 03:31:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18683275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RosalindInPants/pseuds/RosalindInPants
Summary: Wolfe and Santi enjoy a peaceful evening together while Wolfe brushes up on his languages in preparation for the arrival of his postulant class. English, as it turns out, has some interesting reading material.





	I Have a Gentle Cock

**Author's Note:**

> A quick note on translation conventions. I'm writing in English. Wolfe and Santi are speaking Greek and Italian and reading a poem in Middle English. Could this get confusing? Let's try to avoid that.
> 
> I have not forgotten how to spell. I am using Middle English spelling for the poem. Thus, "cok" is an early spelling of "cock", and so on. "Cock" had the exact same double meaning then as it does now.
> 
> Unless it is specified that they are speaking English, when Wolfe and Santi say "cock", they mean "penis". The word does not have the same double meaning in Greek or Italian, at least according to Google Translate. I am putting English in bold for ease of distinguishing between languages.
> 
> Further translation notes at the end. Because languages are fun.

Wolfe was almost done washing the last pan when he heard the sound of rattling plates approaching. "Please tell me this is the last of them," he muttered, not looking up from his work. He didn't mind this task nearly as much as he let on that he did; the warm water felt good on his hands, and ever since his release from prison, he'd found a certain satisfaction in getting things clean. Still, there were appearances to keep up, so he made sure to make a few good-natured complaints every evening as he rolled up his sleeves and tied up his hair on his way to the kitchen, just to keep Nic from worrying too much.

Really, a bit of cleaning was the least he could do after Nic worked a full day and then came home and cooked, while all Wolfe did, aside from sitting around reading, was run the occasional errand. At least he consistently felt well enough to run those errands now. He'd even started helping with the cooking, if only the parts he couldn't possibly fuck up. He was good enough with a knife to reliably slice ingredients, like the mushrooms that had gone into the pan he was now scrubbing. Nic, of course, had done the hard part, getting the veal sliced and rolled to precisely the right thickness and then combining it with the mushrooms in a sweet wine sauce that went well over pasta. They'd eaten out in the courtyard beneath the shade of the lemon tree, Nic with his shirt off to soak in the last rays of the sun. Wolfe would have joined his partner in that, _before_ , but he told himself it was good enough that he'd worn the wine-red shirt Nic so liked on him. Nic had seemed happy enough to see it. They'd lingered over the meal, slowly draining a bottle of chianti and sharing a small berry tart between them for dessert. Nic always made sure there was dessert now, even though Wolfe insisted he didn't need to be spoiled with sweets.

Nic came up behind him and reached around to drop the dessert plates and forks into the washbasin, giving Wolfe a quick kiss on the neck as he did. An advantage of having his hair up was that it left his neck well exposed for such attentions. "Shall I start a pot of coffee?" Nic asked, then kissed him again. And again.

"I'm not working that hard tonight, love, let's have something more intoxicating. Is the limoncello done yet?" He'd been itching to open the bottle since watching Nic fill it with carefully sliced lemon peels and strong liquor. The Santi family recipe produced a pleasantly tart drink that was potent enough to rival vodka or whiskey.

He could feel Nic smiling against his neck. "Christopher,  _amore mio_ , it's only been three days. I haven't even added the sugar yet. You might as well just pour yourself some vodka and drop a lemon into it."

That wasn't particularly appealing. He considered alternatives while he set the clean pan on the drying rack on the counter. "Is there brandy?"

After one more kiss, Nic crossed the room to check the liquor cabinet. "French or Greek? Both... the same age." That meant they were from 2029. Nic wouldn't say the year. It hadn't been a good one. They must have bought these early that year, before Nic left for Belgium. Probably to drink in celebration when Nic got home and Wolfe...

Wolfe had to sharply redirect his thoughts from the memory of what could have been and, worse, what actually had been. Brandy. He was deciding which brandy he wanted, and he was cleaning up from dinner, and there was nothing else to think about. His hands were starting to shake, a motion he translated into more vigorous scrubbing than the dessert plate actually required. "Let's go with the French. It's the one thing they're good for." Well, that and producing Burners, but Nic wouldn't want to talk about that.

Nic came back alongside him to get two snifters down from the cabinet. "Where are we having this?"

"Put mine by my books." There should, he thought, be enough space on the table to put a glass. Probably. That, as much as the pleasant weather, was the reason they had eaten outside: Blanks loaded with texts in a dozen languages scattered across what was usually their dinner table. The pile that had been growing since he received his class roster had gotten out of control as his review of the relevant languages spiraled into rereadings of favorite texts. Maybe he would put some of them away after the evening's reading. Probably not.

He put the thoroughly scrubbed plate on the drying rack and reached for the next one. "I'll be done here shortly."

"All right. You get the counters, I'll get the table outside?" Holding both glasses in one hand, Nic reached around Wolfe to grab a washcloth from the edge of the basin, planting a few more kisses on Wolfe's neck as he wet the rag and squeezed out the excess water.

"Sure, take the easier job for yourself." Wolfe turned to catch his lover with a quick bite, but Nic was already dancing back out of reach, grinning. With a laugh, he went back to his work.

It didn't take long to finish with the remaining dishes and wipe down the counters, and soon enough he could leave the kitchen, letting his hair down as he walked. Nic was waiting for him, standing by the table and shifting books around to make room for the bottle of brandy. He had already poured both glasses and set them in empty spaces between the Blanks. The front curtains were closed, but Nic had left the back window open, letting in a warm, soft breeze and the dying light of the sun, which had already vanished beneath the high courtyard wall. Wolfe selected the chair with the best viewing angle and turned it to face toward the window, perpendicular to the table. Once he was satisfied with the arrangement, he sank into the chair with a sigh of contentment and reached first for the nearest snifter, then for the book he had started before dinner. 

Having made room for the bottle, Nic picked up the other glass and came around to stand before Wolfe. "Which language are you on now?" he asked, leaning over to see the book. He let that motion turn into a smooth slide to the floor, where he sat between Wolfe's legs, leaning on one arm against his thigh and looking up at him with as much adoration as curiosity.

"English. If you intend to let me get any studying done." Wolfe took a quick sniff of the brandy - rich and strong with heavy notes of oak - and set his glass down to run his fingers through his lover's hair. It was getting long, almost past the length soldiers were allowed, and Wolfe mourned its imminent loss to the barber's shears.

"I wouldn't dream of disrupting your studies," Nic said with mock offense, but he set his snifter down on the floor, and with his newly free hand, he began to pick at the laces of Wolfe's trousers, loosening the knot at the top. "English, though. Really? You have one from England in your class?"

Wolfe spread his legs wider and shifted his hips forward, allowing Nic better access. Like the shirt, he'd thought Nic might like to see him wearing these trousers. He'd always liked clothes that took a bit of effort to remove. "Three from England, actually," he said. "Not the top scores - I already told you about that one - but scores aren't everything. They might last."

"Ah, right, the reason you treated me to the highlights of  _One Thousand and One Nights_ ," Nic said, continuing his work on the knot. Wolfe had tied it well. "Read to me again? There must be something worth hearing in English."

Wolfe snorted. "It's a bastard of a language given to thievery and disorderly conduct, but I'll see what I have." He considered the book in his hand for only an instant before returning it to the table. _Oliver Twist_  would give him an excellent review of criminal vocabulary, but it was hardly suited for romance. He considered the books in English he had loaded in the Blanks on the table. Sadly,  _The Complete Works of Scholar William Shakespeare_ was out of reach, and he didn't feel like getting up to retrieve it. His eyes fell on a Blank bound in green leather, the one he had loaded with a particularly old book of poetry, old enough that it was more self indulgence than legitimate language practice to read it. But what were his last days of unemployment for if not a bit of self indulgence? He grabbed the book and flipped through it. A minstrel's manuscript, it contained a delightful number of bawdy verses, but there was one in particular... ah, there it was. He let a grin spread across his face as he recited, with great seriousness, " **I have a gentil cok**." It was a testament to his self control that he did not laugh.

Nic didn't get the joke. Looking up from he knot he'd just untied, he said in Italian, "You'll have to translate, my love. I didn't understand a word of that."

Well, if he was going to ask in Italian, how could Wolfe refuse? "It actually doesn't translate well at all, I'm afraid," he said. He paused a moment and ran the words through his mind in both Greek and Italian before settling on translating in Italian. This would be easier in Italian. "The first part, 'I have a', that's straightforward enough. ' **Gentil** ' is like "ευγενής" in Greek, and can mean either "gentle" or "noble", most likely the second in the time this was written. But ' **cok** ', well... you know how 'maschio' as a noun can mean all manner of male things? A boy, a man, a bull...?"

Almost done with the laces, Nic nodded.

"Well, ' **cock** ' in English can mean both 'penis' and 'rooster', 'cazzo' and 'gallo', 'ψωλή' and 'κόκορας'. Thus, the line might be 'I have a noble rooster', but it might as easily be 'I have a noble penis', 'I have a gentle rooster', or..." With Nic's hand on the part Wolfe was speaking of, it grew increasingly challenging to speak in a properly academic tone. The last translation came out far huskier than it should have, "I have a gentle cock."

Laughing, Nic looked up at Wolfe with eyebrows raised, his hand still full of half-hard cock. " _You_ do  _not_ have a gentle cock."

Turning his nose up, Wolfe gave an exaggerated sniff. "You wouldn't like it if I did. You seemed quite satisfied with it this morning." He picked up his glass and sipped the brandy, pretending to ignore his partner while it numbed his tongue and burned its way down his throat to his stomach.

"Hmm." Nic wrapped his hand around Wolfe's shaft and rubbed his thumb over the head. "Perhaps I enjoy your cock regardless of its gentleness or lack thereof." His thumb pushed the foreskin, already most of the way retracted, the rest of the way back, exposing the most sensitive skin. "Keep reading, and I'll give this cock something gentle. Or not. As you prefer."

Wolfe took another sip and set the brandy down to pick the book up again. "Very well," he said. "As long as you keep your mouth busy, I'll keep reading." He waited until Nic's tongue touched the side of his shaft, then drew in a shaky breath and resumed reading, " **Croweth me day; / He doth me risen erly, / My matins for to say.** " With every line came a slow stroke of his lover's tongue, and he was fully hard by the time he finished translating the verse. "He crows for me at daybreak; / He makes me rise up early / To say my morning prayers."

Nic paused, lifted mouth from cock to say, "It does rise up early, that's true enough. But morning prayers?"

Wolfe pushed his lover's head firmly downward. "Hush. I know you appreciate the sanctity of our devotions to one another as much as I do."

Nic mumbled what seemed to be an affirmative, though it was hard to tell with his mouth full of cock.

Looking away from the enthralling sight of Nic with his mouth full, Wolfe continued, " **I have a gentil cok.** " A gentle bit of suction on the head of his cock made him gasp out the last word, and his voice wavered on the next line, " **Comen he is of gret.** "

"You'd better not be ' **coming** ' already," Nic popped off long enough to say. He used the English word, making it sound far lovelier with his Italian accent than it could ever sound spoken by an Englishman.

Wolfe thrust his hips upward to return himself to the wetness of his lover's mouth. "I thought you didn't know English," he groaned as Nic put a hand on his hip to push him back down onto the chair.

"Barracks rooms have thin walls," Nic said, then took Wolfe's shaft into his mouth, running his tongue along the underside of it as his head moved lower and lower.

"Of course," Wolfe groaned. Nic  _would_ pick up something like that from tone and context alone. "But... you... have... the meaning wrong," he said, panting through a few quick dips into his partner's throat, then regaining his composure when Nic switched to gentler, less distracting motion. "It isn't that sort of ' **come** '. It means he descends from a great family."

Nic gave a snort of laughter around the cock in his mouth. They both knew how Wolfe felt about his family, feelings that had only intensified after recent events.

Wolfe hurried to continue, " **His comb is of red corel, / His tail is of jet.** " He took hold of Nic's hair as he translated, "His comb is of red coral." He pulled his lover's head upward, giving himself a view of red lips on red head in beautiful symmetry with the imagery of the line, then pushed Nic back down as far as he could go for the next line, "His tail is of jet." Nic's black hair and stubble against the black curls at the base of his cock. Gorgeous.

Judging by the appreciative sound Nic made, he, too, was enjoying the visceral demonstration of meaning. Wolfe released Nic's hair, allowing him to return to his gentle bobbing. He made a truly arousing slurping sound each time he came up.

Returning to his reading, Wolfe paced the next lines to end in time with those slurps. " **I have a gentil cok, / Comen he is of kinde** \- That's saying he comes from either nature or good ancestry;  _my_ gentle cock is nowhere near coming, so do keep going." At the current pace, he might last some time yet.

Nic, apparently, took that as criticism and picked up his pace, increasing the level of suction as well, making the next line come out rough and uneven. " **His comb is of red corel**." Wolfe paused to take in a shaky breath, and as he did, Nic demonstrated his newfound understanding of the repeated line by bringing his mouth up to flick his tongue rapidly over the head of Wolfe's cock.

Red. Such beautiful, erotic red. Wolfe moaned with the next line, " **His tail is of inde** \- _ah_ \- indigo." He could feel the climax building, pushed closer as Nic again swallowed the whole of him, held him in the pulsing warmth of his throat.

He could have let himself go there, lost himself in the pleasure, but he had promised Nic poetry, so poetry Nic would have. " **His legges ben of asor** \- his legs, _oh_ , his legs are of azure." He paused for breath. Bit his lip. Went on, " **So gentil and so smale** \- so... so noble... slender." Not at all an accurate word to describe his cock, but still Nic took it, again and again, the moans of his desire nearly as loud as Wolfe's own.

So close. He had to keep reading. He panted out the next lines, " **His spores arn of silver white, / Into the worte-wale.** " Another ragged breath. "His... spurs.. are... silver... _ah_ -" There was no more holding back. White silver all his own burst forth, and he threw back his head and grasped for Nic's hand on his hip, held on tight through the climax.

After he swallowed, Nic switched to light, gentle licks, bringing Wolfe down from his high. Somehow, Wolfe found the presence of mind to finish translating, "His spurs are of white silver, down to the root. ' **Wartwale**.' The root of the spur. The place nail meets finger." It seemed an amusing word, when he thought about it.

Lifting hard-working mouth from satisfied cock, Nic chuckled. "I'd say I took you down to the root," he said, sounding pleased with his performance.

Looking down at the book again, and seeing Nic looking affectionately up at him over it, Wolfe continued the poem, " **His eynen arn of cristal, / Loken all in aumber.** " He smiled at that; he always had liked comparing Nic's eyes to stones. Green agates in the sunlight, brown tiger's eyes by the glows. Perhaps he might add to the list. Holding his partner's gaze, he translated, "His eyes are of crystal, set all in amber."

"Hmm." Nic gazed back, the haze of adoration sharpening into an artist's assessment. "Yes, that does fit. Go on."

Wolfe felt blood rising to his cheeks. He hadn't been thinking of himself at all with those lines. He glanced back down at the book. "This is the last of it, my dear, and ah, this part won't do at all. ' **And every night he percheth him** ' - that much is good. Every night he perches himself. But then, ' **In min ladyes chaumber** ' - in my lady's chamber."

Nic laughed. "No, we can't have your gentle cock perching in some lady's chamber. My chamber would miss it dearly."

"Let us say 'in my lover's chamber', then. It fits the meter well enough." He closed the book and returned it to the table, freeing his hand to pick up his neglected glass of brandy. "Is that a request?"

"Tomorrow, perhaps," Nic said, reaching for his own snifter. He lifted it to Wolfe's, a glimmer of amusement in his eyes. "I'm afraid I'm spent for now. I hope you don't mind."

Ah, yes. Come to think of it, he had felt only that single hand on his hip, at the end there.

Tapping his glass against his lover's, Wolfe said, "Not in the least." In truth, it was gratifying to know he could inspire such passion, and something of a relief to know he wouldn't be expected to perform again so soon. He ran his fingers through Nic's hair and swallowed a sip of brandy. "I am more than satisfied for tonight."

"Good. I would hate to think I was anything less than satisfying." Nic took a deep drink, then set his glass down, tucked Wolfe's now soft cock back into his trousers, and set to work redoing the laces. "What do you say we top off our glasses and go take in the night air? Clear as it's been, we should have a good view of the stars."

"Determined to disrupt my studies, are you?" Wolfe couldn't manage the irritable tone he'd intended, and ended up laughing instead. "Yes, my love, that is exactly what we should do."

Nic's smile was truly radiant as they both got up. Wolfe poured more brandy while his partner closed the curtains and turned down - only down, never off anymore - the glows. Nic held out his arm as they passed through the back door, and they walked together side by side along the cobblestone path through their narrow courtyard, past the lemon tree and the table beneath it, toward the bench against the far wall. The garden around them was looking less patchy than it had a few weeks ago, recovering from Wolfe's abortive attempt at gardening. The rosemary bushes, hardy things that they were, still filled the air with their fragrance, and a few of the cooking herbs he'd tried to plant for Nic looked like they might survive. The basil was a lost cause, even with the aid of the gardener they'd been forced to hire, but the mint seemed healthy.

The gardener had actually suggested pulling the mint out before it could spread beyond its bed. Wolfe figured that if the plant was that determined to survive, it deserved its conquest of the garden. There were worse things than a garden of nothing but mint. It would make good tea.

With the glows going out around the city, the night was growing dark, but there was enough light from the moon and the stars to see by, and that was enough to make it a pleasant sort of dark, a dark Wolfe could enjoy in his lover's arms. He snuggled against Nic on the bench, warm and content. The moon rose higher and their glasses grew emptier. 

Wolfe was starting to doze off, his head on Nic's shoulder, when his partner's shoulders shook with a laugh. He looked up at Nic, inquisitive.

"A gentle cock," Nic said.

With his stomach full of brandy, that sounded more amusing than it had earlier, and Wolfe laughed, then said, "Personally, I would say the white silver spurs made quite the amusing image. Particularly with the timing."

"Not the comb of red coral?"

Their laughter echoed off the courtyard walls and into the night.

**Author's Note:**

> First of all, thanks to Blessedharlot for putting the idea of Wolfe reading erotic poetry into my head, and to Mazeem for feedback and encouragement.
> 
> The poem, with notes: http://headlesschicken.ca/eng204/texts/gentilcok.html  
> And another variant (note the different spelling: Middle English spelling was wild): https://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poems/i-have-gentil-cook  
> It can also be found (along with other fun Middle English poetry) in this book: https://books.wwnorton.com/books/webad.aspx?id=12305  
> Wolfe's translations draw from the translations and notes in all three of those sources.  
> The manuscript Wolfe is reading from probably looks something like this: http://headlesschicken.ca/eng204/texts/images/Sloane2593.jpg  
> The poem is, in fact, both a parody of cheesy love poetry and an extended and elaborate dick joke.
> 
> I do not actually speak a word of Italian. I am relying entirely on Google Translate, so please tell me if I've fucked it up. As translations for "cock", Google gave me these that I've used, among others:  
> cazzo: cock, dick, shit, prick, penis, pecker  
> gallo: cock, rooster, Gaul, grouse, bantam  
> maschio: male, boy, man, son, bull, cock
> 
> I also do not speak Greek, nor can I read it. Google Translate gives me "ευγενής" for both "gentle" and "noble", so I am assuming it has the same meaning there as the Middle English 'gentil'. Wolfe's Greek translations of "cock" are from Google Translate.
> 
> If you actually speak any of these languages, I would love your feedback.


End file.
